Editorial: Reversal of medical marijuana dispensary ban shows it will take more than one city to stop proliferation

THE Los Angeles City Council's decision Tuesday to reverse itself on the medical marijuana dispensary ban illustrates that the medpot shop issue is too big and complicated for one city to handle - even the largest one in the state.

The City Council had little choice but to overturn its own ban on the ubiquitous and problematic storefront medical marijuana dispensaries to avoid a ballot measure that would have placed the matter in the hands of city voters. A costly referendum would have likely passed, putting the city - and all others in the state - in an even worse position.

This action now puts this controversial issue into the hands of state Legislature. Lawmakers must step up and create a clearly defined set of rules to control medpot outlets across the state.

In the meantime, Los Angeles city officials said they will go after dispensaries that violate local laws while also hoping that the federal government continues a series of recent busts at dozens of shops scattered across Los Angeles.

Shortly after Los Angeles adopted the ban this summer, the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal of the Pack vs. Long Beach case. That ruling simply affirmed a lower court's decision that Long Beach - and every other city in California - does not have the authority to regulate how many dispensaries could set up shop, or where.

That gave the green light for further proliferation of pot dispensaries, allowing for the potential for shop owners to turn them into illegal operations for recreational users - and the reason both Los Angeles and Long Beach decided to ban them outright.

These dispensaries, which have become profit-making operations, became magnets for crime, according to police. This was certainly not the intent of state voters who approved Proposition 215 in 1996, allowing for the "compassionate" use of medical marijuana by those afflicted with cancer, AIDS and other debilitating diseases.

But the well-funded medical marijuana industry struck back at L.A.'s ban, successfully collecting nearly 50,000 signatures for a ballot referendum to overturn the ban. So far, Long Beach has not been targeted by a referendum, but L.A.'s repeal of the ban would make that possible, if not likely.

This is an problem clearly bigger than these two cities. It's time for Los Angeles, Long Beach and other municipalities to get on their collective soapboxes and demand that state lawmakers craft a set of regulations that will bring pot shops closer to the letter of the law - and the way Proposition 215 was meant to play out.

If an overarching, singular set of rules aren't adopted soon, then medical marijuana dispensaries will continue multiplying at a rapid pace that could become too costly to control while potentially endangering the neighborhoods they inhabit.